Chapter 2 Brick
brICK
The microphone squeals, settles, and then that drawl the fans love rolls over the speakers like warm molasses.
“Folks, give it up for a living legend. You know him, you love him—the Silver Fox Bull Rider—Brick Wyatt!”
The nickname still makes me snort. I don’t dye gray out of my hair, and the sport decides to brand me with it.
But the roar that hits me when I nod at the announcer and tip my hat is a hell of a thing.
It thumps in my ribs, straight through the vest, and reminds me that I’ve been doing this longer than most of these kids have been alive.
I slide my glove hand down the bull rope, settle my hips, and breathe.
Smell of leather. Barn dust. The hot, animal funk that vibrates off the bull under me like a motor trying to shake loose.
The gate man squints at me with a question that’s older than both of us—ready? —and I give him a little chin flick.
I don’t pray. I’ve never been good at asking for things.
What I do is run through the mechanics in my head.
Spine loose. Chest proud. Hips forward. He goes left, you go with.
He goes right, you stick like a burr. Don’t get ahead of him.
Don’t get behind. Eight seconds is just eight seconds like every other one you’ve ever ridden.
The gate bangs, and the world explodes.
He blows out of the chute heavy and hot, sun slamming me full in the face, the crowd clearing its throat into one big yell.
He’s a spinner, I feel it in a heartbeat—left, left, left—and I slide with him, knees holding like a vise, free arm painting the air.
He fakes a direction change, and I grin mean without meaning to—nice try, big man, not today—and keep my hips where my hips need to be.
It’s kinda like riding bitch on a motorcycle. You go with the bike. If you fight it, your ass is on the ground and probably missing a big chunk.
I’m not the kid I was. What I am is experienced.
You learn things after thirty, and more after forty.
You learn that your legs aren’t springs anymore.
They’re levers, best for keeping you in place, not for trying to control the beast between them.
You learn to breathe even while your teeth are rattling around like dice in a cup.
You learn when to hold and when to let go.
Four seconds. Five. The sound of him sucking wind like a bellows is in my ears. He throws a hop and a skip, and I take it, body going loose when loose is the only thing that sticks. I feel my core burn. I feel my knee complain. I tell both of them to shut up and do their damn jobs.
Six. Seven. Eight—horn blows—a clean, sweet little mercy note.
I peel my fingers off the rope, swing my leg, and make a tidy dismount that I’m going to pretend didn’t take every spare ounce of juice I had left.
Hit the dirt running, look back long enough to make sure the pickup man’s got his attention, and the bullfighters are between him and any dumb choices I might make.
I tip my hat to the crowd. They go louder, and it’s addictive. Hell, it’s half the reason I’m out here.
The scoreboard coughs up a number that makes me nod—good, not world-shaking. I’ve had world-shaking. I’ve also had the other kind, the kind you don’t say out loud. Today’s in the black. I’ll take it.
I jog the long way around the arena, because my legs like to move after they’ve been beaten for eight seconds. The heat is all the way up today, that Utah kind that bakes you from above and below, and as I duck under the rail by the back gate, I’m already stripping the glove and loosening the vest.
I know where I’m headed before my boots hit the midway hay path.
The medic tent sits like a white tooth at the edge of the grounds, red cross banner reminding the universe there’s a place to take your broken before it turns you into a story.
I spotted my youngest heading there right as I was mounting that bull, and since she’s perfectly fine, I figured she was gonna cause a ruckus.
Sure enough, I see her bare knee swinging off a cot as I step inside. One ankle is wrapped with an Ace bandage, and she’s working it for all it’s worth, leaning into a story I already know is fifty percent truth and fifty percent her creative imagination.
A young nurse with a cap shoved backward—JADEN, says the badge—stands in front of her with a paper cup of water, not quite smitten but trying very hard not to be.
Blaze has that effect. She arrived last of my brood, and made it her business to be first in everyone’s minds ever since.
I didn’t name her Blaze for nothing. The girl burns.
“I told you,” she’s saying, touching his wrist like he’s delicate crystal, “I’m a medical marvel. I bruise in shapes. Look.”
She peels back an inch of wrap and shows him a crescent moon the color of plums. I know that mark. That’s a rail kiss. It happens when you’re standing where you shouldn’t, watching what you shouldn’t, and forgetting that rails are there to keep animals in and keep you out.
In short, she didn’t sprain a damn thing.
Jaden leans in because he’s a professional, and also because Blaze is a pretty girl. “That is…an interesting crescent.”
“See?” she says, triumphant. She’s got her mama’s blonde hair braided with a blue ribbon to match her eyes, lipstick in the exact red that says I know I’m trouble and I’m worth it, and a glint in her eye when she catches me in her periphery that says she knows I know she’s faking and she doesn’t give a damn.
“Howdy, Doc,” I say, out of reflex, and then correct myself because the person I’m looking at isn’t a doctor; he’s the nurse who’s going to have to explain to the doctor why a perfectly capable young woman is taking up space on a cot. “Nurse. Sorry. Old habit.”
“Howdy yourself,” he says, smiling with his whole face. “We can do ‘Jaden’ if you like. Congratulations on the ride, Mr. Wyatt.”
“Brick,” I say with a nod. “And thanks. She give you her ankle story yet?”
“I was just hearing about the rare condition of bruise shapes.”
“Yeah.” I roll my eyes at her. “It’s genetic. From her mother’s side.”
Blaze snorts. “You wish it were from Mom’s side. Mom bruised like a peach. I’m titanium. Hey, did you see that spin? That bull was pissed.”
“I saw,” I say, dropping a hand to squeeze her shoulder. “And I saw you standing two inches past where you were supposed to be, which is why your ankle hurts.”
She shoots me a look that says don’t blow my cover and then tilts her chin toward Jaden like she’s cueing me to play nice.
I always do. I raised her with a light hand because the world’s heavy enough, and because she lost her mama too early to squeeze the joy out of our girl for the sake of appearances.
“You,” Blaze says to Jaden, “make a very good paper cup of water. Also, you have excellent hands.”
“Blaze,” I say, forcing a smile. “I think Ford wanted to see you.”
“What?” She bats her lashes. “I’m appreciating healthcare workers. Ford works for us—he can wait.”
Jaden flushes. If my daughter wants to practice being a chaos goblin on him for ten minutes, there are worse choices. I will still bury any dumb boy who hurts her heart under the biggest cottonwood I can find.
I start to thank him proper when I see her.
She’s at the back table, gloved up, tucking something into a tray with quiet hands.
Beige skin, black scrub top already dusted from the day, golden-brown hair pulled back, and flyaways catching the light.
There’s a focus to her that hums. Head tilted the way good doctors tilt when they’re listening, like they’re tuning to a frequency everybody else can’t hear.
But when she looks up, I get the full hit—green eyes with a sharp mind behind them, a mouth set focused on business. I’ve been in enough tents to know when I’m looking at someone who can stack chaos into order with two hands and a roll of tape.
It’s hard to breathe for a second.
She doesn’t see me looking. That’s fine. I’m not hunting anything today. What I am doing is clocking the doctor who might one day be the difference between my kid going home and my kid not. You learn to notice the ones who steady a world built to wobble.
Definitely not here to hit on her. Nope. That’s not why I’m here. Ain’t got no reason to bother her, and she’s busy. And it’s poor manners to hit on a woman at work.
But damn.
“Dad,” Blaze says, dragging my attention back the way only your kid can. “Jaden says there’s a zipper here that kicks like a bronco. I know you don’t like them, but maybe someone else can ride it with me…”
It’s hard not to laugh at the obviousness of it. “Yeah, maybe someone can.”
“Y’all doing okay here?” Jaden asks her, still very much aware of her eyes on him. He’s sweet. I hope he stays that way. Riders chew sweet up for breakfast. Guess he’s decided he might not be interested in her.
Self-preservation, most likely.
“Better now,” she says, and I hear the cadence of her mama in her voice and swallow it down. Grief doesn’t ask permission. It walks into your tent when it wants and sits on your chest, and you learn to keep working around it. “Thank you, Jaden.”
Cash is up soon. My middle boy. Show-off like his old man, but prettier to look at when he does it.
I catch the clock out of the corner of my eye and pat Blaze’s knee.
“You got your flirt out for now? Come on. Your brother’s about to make me proud or make me cuss, and either way I’d like to be there for the moment. ”
“Jaden, do you want to come with us?” she asks.
“I’m on tent duty.” He nods toward the doctor, but adds, “Y’all go cheer him loud. We’ll be here if you need us.”
I stand, joints making a private protest that I answer with a stretch. Blaze slides off the cot with her “injured” ankle miraculously fine the second it needs to be, and she threads her arm through mine like she did when she was nine and decided I was her favorite human.